Testimonials
The core of the Newsmaker product is the Newsroom - a Flash application enabling students to lay out newspaper pages, populating them with articles and photos. The application that Excelsoft has developed is well designed and intuitive, even for primary-aged students. When we conducted our own code reviews, we found that the Excelsoft developers had fully complied with the technical specifications, that we had provided at the outset and that the application was very well coded using Actionscript 3. The Flash application needed to allow for complex database interactions. Multiple students work collaboratively on each newspaper project, so the Flash needs to pass information back and forth with the database, on who has contributed which elements in which position. Teachers can upload text and image-based resources when setting up projects. These are then pulled into the Flash, when students begin work. Excelsoft analyzed the complexity of these requirements in a detailed way and then implemented the agreed specification very effectively.
Tom Jackson
Director of Digital Agency, Business and Professional, Guardian News and Media
UK
We have been able to establish excellent working relationships with the team at Excel Soft. Working closely with members of the IMS QTI project team, Excel Soft has been able to produce a system which is second to none in its adherence to this specification – vital for any organisation wishing to produce future-proof banks of questions. The positive experience of working with Excel Soft on TOIA means that I will seriously consider them for future software or learning content development initiatives.
Niall Sclater
Head of eLearning
University of Strathclyde, Scotland
We have worked with Excel Soft for two years, and have been entirely delighted with the relationship as it has evolved, to the extent that we now aim to place all our principal external software commissions with Excel Soft. This is not least because the company specializes in developing software for educational purposes. Excel Soft has developed a bespoke Content Management and Syndication System for us, which is now being upgraded to version 2. We have also placed numerous contracts with Excel Soft to develop bespoke web applications, sites, and most recently a custom-designed Customer Relationship Management system. Excel Soft's staffs have always been highly responsive to our needs, all documentation has been reliable, projects well managed, and our personal relationships have been well nurtured and maintained. We would strongly recommend Excel Soft as a business partner.
Colin Hughes
Managing Director
Learnthings Ltd., UK
Whizz Education is delighted to be working with the team at Excel Soft. A relationship which started as plain and simple sub-contracting has over 6-9 months evolved into what feels now like a mutually beneficial partnership. Through their great attention to detail combined with good intuition and high skill levels, Excel Soft programmers are helping us to create the Flash animations which will be at the heart of our Maths-Whizz tutoring products. We have found Excel Soft staff to be exceptionally personable, easy to communicate with, and very patient with our change requests. They are thorough and prompt with the work we commission and when responding to queries. We especially appreciate the helpful suggestions they volunteer about our product design and data structure.
Perhaps the key point is that Excel Soft has clearly demonstrated that they now think alongside us, they understand what we are trying to achieve, and this makes for a smooth and highly productive partnership.
Ron van der Meer
Founder of Whizz Education
UK
I’ve had the pleasure of working with Excelsoft in the past year or so and we launched the Pegasus project, a state of the art online assessment product, based on the SARAS AMS product. This is very ambitious project, substantial expanding in the capabilities of SARAS AMS, and very well tailored to the US publication market. In a very short order, we’ve built together a large development team. In my mind they have worked unbelievably successfully, be it technical, be it product management in North America. We set very ambitious goals for ourselves, a year ago, not only in the terms of the capabilities to add to Pegasus but also in the terms of schedule in the budget and we admit those causes and that is a remarkable feat for a new team in the course for a new partnership. In due consideration of this partnership, Pegasus is Pearson Ed’s largest and technically most ambitious project.
It is a corner stone of a strategy we call “Content Plus” which refers to adding very sophisticated assessment building capabilities to our content. And here in Pegasus it’s just a start of a very long and hopefully successful partnership with Excelsoft, our relation is already expanding to the Indian higher education marketplace. In the past year I enjoyed getting to know the people at Excelsoft. I’ve been continuously impressed by their honesty, their forthrightness and their diligence in making sure that they understand Pearson’s perspective and our needs. I see many great opportunities ahead for your company, but also specially for a partnership and I’m personally committed to making sure that partnership is a long and successful one. Congratulations and I really appreciate our work together, thank you.
David O Connor
Senior Vice President
Pearson Education, Boston, USA
